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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Last I checked, Canada doesn't share a border with Mexico and some portion of these Latino "day workers" are illegal immigrants. Day workers are often paid under the table and when I have read other stories about them, they tend to include medical horror stories like "So, this guy cut 3 of his fingers off and they didn't even take him to the ER. They just returned him to the place where they had picked him up."

This is not exactly the best use case for arguing about Canada versus US healthcare policies.

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Canada doesn't have a border with Mexico, but it does have its share of undocumented and under-protected workers.

> While there are no accurate figures representing the number or composition of undocumented migrant population in Canada, estimates range between 20,000 and 500,000 persons

> Research suggests most undocumented individuals live in large urban centres and typically work in seasonal and informal sectors, such as construction, agriculture, caregiving and housekeeping.

> Undocumented migrants are a vulnerable group due to their lack of immigration status, as was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have limited access to health care, social services or employment protections.

Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...

Until this year, asylum-seekers could transit through the United States into Canada under the Safe Third Country Agreement, by crossing the border at an irregular crossing like Roxham Road.

Sources: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/deal-roxham-road-migrants-b...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-asylum-seeker-increase...

https://web.archive.org/web/20230601135133/https://www.nytim...

Canadas temporary foreign worker program means you don't need to illegally hire day workers, you just keep the wages low enough that nobody will take the job and then tell the government you need to bring in foreign workers - not for professional or technical work, not for picking in the fields, but for working at McDonald's and tim Hortons.

They also allow international students at diploma mills to work 40 hrs a week, above the table.

It's a sham.

A quick search suggests there are 10.5 million in the US.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/04/13/key-facts...

On a per-capita basis that's not hugely different, but one of the reasons may be that Canada provides a somewhat easier path, relative to the United States, to becoming a legal immigrant rather than remaining undocumented.

Really? I’ve had relatives try to immigrate to Canada (from the US), and it was quite a horror story. Any specifics?

Relative to Canada the United States is even more difficult to legally immigrate to, consider that the US system has been constantly adding ever increasing hurdles to legal immigration for ages.

A quick search suggests there are 335 million Americans but only 37 million Canadians.

https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/canada.united-st...

So Canada has 1/10 the population of the US and 1/20 the population of undocumented immigrants.

So seems like Canada has many fewer immigrants of this type than the US.

More policy preaching from ultra-white northern countries that don't let anyone in. It's such a tired trope...

Canada doesn't let anyone in? Over a fifth of their population was born outside of Canada.

Edit: Actually over a quarter.

26.4% of Canada’s population are first generation immigrants (foreign born): https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/fo...

Canada will have imported over 1M immigrants in 2023 (for their population of only 40M!). Newsflash: most aren't white.

Canada is pretty heavy on immigration I hear-- its how they partially make up for a declining birthrate.

It's not only Canada that uses immigration - legal or turning a blind eye to illegal - to make up for falling birthrate.

Look at Germany. Look at France. Look at what's happen to Japan because such an option isn't as viable.

It's simply not politically feasable to say, "Without immigrants, our economy is f'ed."

> It's simply not politically feasable to say, "Without immigrants, our economy is f'ed."

And yet, that's what politicians in Germany are saying: "Denn Deutschland braucht sie dringend: Durch die seit Jahrzehnten sinkende Geburtenrate gibt es auch weniger Arbeitskräfte. Diese Lücke konnte lange über Zuwanderung aus dem EU-Ausland gefüllt werden. Doch inzwischen reicht das nicht mehr aus." (https://www.spdfraktion.de/themen/neustart-migrationspolitik, the social-democrat representatives in Parliament)

"Because Germany needs them urgently: Due to the declining birth rate for decades, there are also fewer workers. For a long time, this gap could be filled by immigration from other EU countries. But this is no longer enough."

American too, birth rate is 1.6, well below a replacement rate of 2.1

> its how they partially make up for a declining birthrate.

To the detriment of their origin countries who suffer from losing their best and brightest. How "Northern countries exploit the South again" is a (rather quiet) talking point that I believe will become louder in the future.

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